Mississippi has four CDs and a large number of small counties, yet unlike IA or AR which have the same situation, MS does not try to keep counties whole, but goes for exact population equaliy. Out of curiosity, I drew a map of MS using the 2010 Census data following the style of AR with whole counties only. The maximum deviation is 983 (0.13%) and CD2 is 59% black VAP.

Looks about right. Just take the 2 counties with the most blacks and throw them in the black district, and population balance.

I doubt this will be hard.

Yet MS doesn't bother to keep counties intact. The VRA district is solid enough that I wouldn't think that a few hundred people would cause a map to fail preclearance. In any case, MS could follow the example of AR in 2001 and have a second map that was essentially the same but with exact equality as a backup plan.

Looks about right. Just take the 2 counties with the most blacks and throw them in the black district, and population balance.

I doubt this will be hard.

You're talking of the rl map? Yeah, to be more precise you take Natchez and most of Panola County.

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Madison consists of a suburban White south and a rural Black north. I would suppose Southern Madison has more community of interest with the rest of the Jackson metro than with the rural parts of the country. So... unless you're suggesting to also add the remaining Hinds precincts and most of Rankin County... I wouldn't worry.

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You can, if you really want to, but its split right now along those exact lines. So I left them there.

I'm not sure that it is even particularly that White. I think it could be a case similar to DeKalb Georgia, where you have white suburbanites followed soon by black suburbanites.

Between 2000 and 2010, White population increased 18%, Black population by 29%.

The southern part of Madison County is nothing like DeKalb, Georgia. Its approximately 60,000 residents are 68.5% white, 70.2% by VAP. If you add the fast-growing Gluckstadt precinct currently in MS-2, the population goes up to approximately 70,500 and the white percentage to 70.3%/71.7%. Most of the black residents live immediately adjacent to the county line or in the northern part of the county.

The part of Hinds County that is in MS-3 is 62.1%/66.0% white. That might sound low, but it isn't, really, compared to some Jackson voting districts that are 95%+ black.

Were you to add the missing Madison and Hinds pieces to MS-2, you can draw a very good map that generally respects county lines except to balance population, without the need for MS-2 to drag all the way down to the Louisiana border. Every district on this map has a deviation +/-10 from the ideal CD population. MS-2 happens to be exactly correct:MS-01 (blue) is 71.5% VAP white and has 9 more residents than ideal;MS-02 (green) is 58.8% VAP black and is ideal;MS-03 (purple) is 61.3% VAP white and has 2 more residents than ideal;MS-04 (red) is 72.9% VAP white and has 10 residents fewer than ideal.

Unfortunately, the Columbus/West Point/Starkville Golden Triangle area ends up split up, as in the current map. Columbus is in MS-01; West Point Starkville and some southern Columbus suburbs are in MS-03. As does Rankin County from the rest of the Jackson metro - but that was a conscious decision made in the past for racial reasons. In a color-blind world, the three major counties of the Jackson metro would be kept together, which would allow the Golden Triangle to stay together in the same CD.

I'm not sure that it is even particularly that White. I think it could be a case similar to DeKalb Georgia, where you have white suburbanites followed soon by black suburbanites.

Between 2000 and 2010, White population increased 18%, Black population by 29%.

The southern part of Madison County is nothing like DeKalb, Georgia. Its approximately 60,000 residents are 68.5% white, 70.2% by VAP. If you add the fast-growing Gluckstadt precinct currently in MS-2, the population goes up to approximately 70,500 and the white percentage to 70.3%/71.7%. Most of the black residents live immediately adjacent to the county line or in the northern part of the county.

Nixon in 1968 had a majority in DeKalb county in a 3-way race.

In 1980, it was Reagan's 28th strongest county, with Carter only carrying the county by 5%. In 1988, it was Dukakis's 23rd strongest county, and along with Fulton, the only two counties outside the Black Belt carried by Dukakis.In 2000, it was Gore's 2nd strongest county, putting up a 44% plurality.

Or going further south, Clayton has gone from 35% for Dukakis in 1988 to 83% for Obama in 2008.

Madison historically had a substantial black population, which then had some suburban growth from folks leaving Jackson. But if they could afford it, white folk would probably prefer Rankin to Madison. Moreover, the blacker part of Jackson is the north side. So whites can also go south and west in Hinds County and keep in whiter areas. But it is likely that Madison will become the preferred area for suburban-seeking blacks.

Were you to add the missing Madison and Hinds pieces to MS-2, you can draw a very good map that generally respects county lines except to balance population, without the need for MS-2 to drag all the way down to the Louisiana border. Every district on this map has a deviation +/-10 from the ideal CD population. MS-2 happens to be exactly correct:MS-01 (blue) is 71.5% VAP white and has 9 more residents than ideal;MS-02 (green) is 58.8% VAP black and is ideal;MS-03 (purple) is 61.3% VAP white and has 2 more residents than ideal;MS-04 (red) is 72.9% VAP white and has 10 residents fewer than ideal.

Unfortunately, the Columbus/West Point/Starkville Golden Triangle area ends up split up, as in the current map. Columbus is in MS-01; West Point Starkville and some southern Columbus suburbs are in MS-03. As does Rankin County from the rest of the Jackson metro - but that was a conscious decision made in the past for racial reasons. In a color-blind world, the three major counties of the Jackson metro would be kept together, which would allow the Golden Triangle to stay together in the same CD.

If you follow county boundaries you don't have to have a perfect ideal population 1% may be close enough. How far off is MS-4 if you leave out the piece of Jefferson Davis.

What if all of Lowndes is all in MS-3, and Webster and/or Clay are put into MS-1. Or maybe add Grenada to MS-2 and put all of Attala in in MS-3.

I'm not sure that it is even particularly that White. I think it could be a case similar to DeKalb Georgia, where you have white suburbanites followed soon by black suburbanites.

Between 2000 and 2010, White population increased 18%, Black population by 29%.

The southern part of Madison County is nothing like DeKalb, Georgia. Its approximately 60,000 residents are 68.5% white, 70.2% by VAP. If you add the fast-growing Gluckstadt precinct currently in MS-2, the population goes up to approximately 70,500 and the white percentage to 70.3%/71.7%. Most of the black residents live immediately adjacent to the county line or in the northern part of the county.

Nixon in 1968 had a majority in DeKalb county in a 3-way race.

In 1980, it was Reagan's 28th strongest county, with Carter only carrying the county by 5%. In 1988, it was Dukakis's 23rd strongest county, and along with Fulton, the only two counties outside the Black Belt carried by Dukakis.In 2000, it was Gore's 2nd strongest county, putting up a 44% plurality.

Or going further south, Clayton has gone from 35% for Dukakis in 1988 to 83% for Obama in 2008.

Madison historically had a substantial black population, which then had some suburban growth from folks leaving Jackson. But if they could afford it, white folk would probably prefer Rankin to Madison. Moreover, the blacker part of Jackson is the north side. So whites can also go south and west in Hinds County and keep in whiter areas. But it is likely that Madison will become the preferred area for suburban-seeking blacks.

No doubt the southern part of Madison may turn into the Jackson version of DeKalb county in 10 or 20 years. But it's not quite there yet, according to the 2010 census. The part of MS-02 in Madison County is still majority white.

No doubt I could balance population within 1% without crossing county lines if I had to. Muon2 already did. I'm not convinced that's where the legislature is headed, though.

With the 2008 data uploaded in DRA, here's a mild Democratic gerrymander:

MS-01: This would be friendlier to Childers. It sheds some GOP-leaning central counties and grabs some heavily-black counties from Thompson and Harper. It moves from 62/37 McCain to a more manageable 55/44 McCain. There's a good chance Childers could have held this seat last year. If I recall, he lost by about 13 points; this district actually swings 14% towards Obama.

MS-02: Thompson takes a hit to weaken Nunnlee. Its now 56% black, down from 63%. At 61/38 Obama, still Safe D.

MS-03: Other than 4 new counties from MS-01 and taking more chunks from MS-04, pretty much the same. Its McCain % goes up by 4 to pack Republicans. Its now 65/34 McCain up from 61/38.

MS-04: There wasn't much I could to help Taylor in a possible rematch other than giving him familiar territory. Virtually no change; 67/32 McCain.

They tried to put south Madison County into district 2 about 10 years ago, and both sides freaked out. The suburban whites didn't want to be in Bennie's district, and the Delta didn't want suburban voters mucking in their rural district. Even though it looks bad and forces me to have a dufus like Gregg Harper as my Congressman, there's no political will on either side to have all of Madison County in the same district.

Not entirely. They kept Natchez in CD3, let the second take some more of CD1's remaining Blackbelt areas instead, extended the 1st southward as a result.

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The amount of changes beyond the minimum necessary to equalize the populations of the four districts may indeed be very small. But, wasn't keeping "communities of interest" suppose to be standard?

Under that standard, why not have the delta district extend down the entire delta?

I've wondered that too. Both Adams and Wilkinon counties are geographically and politically similar to MS-02 as a whole.

If I were drawing the maps, I would have included Adams and Wilkinson in the 2nd in exchange for some of the eastern counties, but communities of interest are certainly better served by this map than the maps in most states.